Mikhail Gnesin - Adygea, Op. 48: Sextet for violin, viola, cello, clarinet, horn and piano

Adygea, Op. 48 - Sextet for violin, viola, cello, clarinet, horn and piano (1937) Music for a sextet of strings, winds and piano by Russian Jewish composer Mikhail Gnesin (1883-1957), who was associated with the symbolist and Futurist artistic movements. The son of a prominent rabbi, Jewish folk musical idioms were a source of great inspiration for Gnesin; he was among the original founders of the St. Petersburg Society for Jewish Folk Music. After this became a dangerous preoccupation under Stalin’s oppressive rule, Gnesin turned instead to the traditional music of various other ethnic groups within the Soviet Union. In this case, Adygea is a region of the north Caucasus, which was part of the Cherkess (Circassian) Autonomous Oblast at the time of this work’s composition. In 1937, the Cherkess Oblast became part of the district known as Krasnodar Krai. Moscow Soloist Ensemble Violin: Edward Iatsoun Viola: Stanislav Koriakin Cello: Dimitri Surikov Clarinet: Alexandre Morogovsky Horn: Nikita Glagolev Piano: Basinia Shulman (The painting is by Lev Lagorio.)